Love Me Broken (40 page)

Being here, relying on Adam, it feels like our relationship has suddenly gotten more serious. This is no longer the fun, easygoing dating period. It’s like we’ve fast-forwarded to the middle of a marriage, to a crisis moment. I am overwhelmed with feeling for him, but I have to settle for this silent embrace. Then we hear the creak of Rachel’s footsteps again and have to let go. We look at each other a moment. Adam looks like he wants to both apologize and thank me at the same time. Then we head into the kitchen, and his mom makes him a snack.

At Rachel’s suggestion, I take a shower while Adam eats. She’s polite about it, but I get the feeling that she wants a moment alone with Adam. Or maybe she just wants to make sure that we don’t take a shower together. Not that that should really be an issue right now. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so out of the mood in my life. I step into the bathroom’s beige tub, listening to the sounds of Pete inside his crate as I wash myself.

Definitely not feeling sexy.

I come out to find Adam and Rachel sitting silently at the round table. There’s an empty plate in front of Adam. Rachel has a steaming mug with the string of a tea bag hanging over the side. They are both looking down in opposite directions, and when I come into the room, I have to announce myself before they notice.

“What time do we have to be at the hospital?” I ask.

Rachel blinks and then looks up at me. “Hmm?”

I repeat my question.

“Oh. Early. Eight.”

There’s not much more to say, so Adam pushes back his chair and kisses his mother goodnight. I give a goodnight wave, and Rachel nods back at me, not getting up from her chair. She seems very tense, very tired. It reminds me a little of my own mother.

Adam brushes his teeth and then takes a quick shower while I call my mom from his bedroom. She insists I try to rest after my long trip. I promise to try, and we say goodnight. After hanging up, the room feels very quiet and very foreign. I hear the shower turn off, and then the sound of the shower curtain being pulled back. In the kitchen, I hear his mother sigh. And I come to know that we won’t have any privacy in this house.

I wonder how that must have been growing up for Adam. Bad, I suppose.

Adam comes into the room and shuts the door behind him. He’s wearing pajama shorts and a soft t-shirt. He reattaches his oxygen tube and sets the tank by the bed. This means he has to sleep on the outside. I climb in and get under the covers. I think to myself: this is Adam’s bed. He has slept here hundreds, perhaps thousands of times. This is his home.

Adam pulls the comforter over us, and he settles onto his back with his arm around me. I cuddle in close, resting my head against the nook of his arm and body. I have to be careful though. I don’t want to put too much weight on his chest.

We’re quiet, both with eyes wide open.

“This feels weird,” he says. “Being here.”

“Having me here?” I ask.

He turns to me, and kisses me lightly on the side of the head. “No. I like having you here. I think the old me would feel pretty proud, knowing that you’d be in this bed.”

I chuckle, trying to keep my voice quiet. Then I grow scared, thinking of tomorrow. “Adam,” I say, and find his hand and hold it.

“I know,” he says. He puts both arms around me, and I cuddle in closer. Our bodies fit together perfectly, and it feels so nice. We breathe together, and I feel his warmth.

“Do you think Pete will be all right?” I ask.

Adam smiles, and kisses me on the head. “Pete’s tougher than you think.”

My eyes start to grow heavy, and I close them, lost in a space between dozing and thinking. As my head clears, a piece of knowledge rises to the surface, so sure and so true that it startles me awake:

You should enjoy this, Erica. It’ll only get worse from here
.

I just assumed it was simple: once Adam started treatment, he would gradually get better. Like taking medicine. Apparently, cancer doesn’t work like that. He just keeps getting worse.

The first surgery leaves him in the hospital for a week. Rachel and I take turns visiting him, waiting to learn the results. The plan for the surgery was to remove as much of the tumor as possible with a lobectomy, and then as soon as Adam is able, to start him on radiation treatments to kill whatever is left behind. Then, if that doesn’t work, we start immediately on chemotherapy to shrink the tumor and possibly go into surgery again. If he lives that long.

That first week I spend alternating between hospital visits and quiet meals back at the trailer with Rachel. It’s slightly comforting to stay in Adam’s room. I like that I can be near his things, even if I can’t be with him. Pete adjusts to the new home without nearly as much trouble as he had in my garage, and soon I’m able to let him sleep in the bed with me at night.

I think I know better how he feels now. We’re both strangers in a strange land, and it will take a while before it feels like home—if it ever does.

By the end of the week, the news is mixed. Adam is recovering well from the surgery, but the cancer was also in areas that were beyond the reach of the procedure. They schedule radiation
and
chemo for the following week. The good news is that Adam will get to come home. He’s to rest and recover over the next two weeks, and even then they don’t expect him to have much energy. They emphasize that he’ll be weaker, that we should expect it, and adjust our lifestyles accordingly. Rachel and I are just happy that he gets to come home.

I end up sleeping on the couch once he returns. He’s still so sore from the surgery that any slight movement in the bed causes him considerable pain. Pete comes with me, to keep me company, but the couch feels even less like home. I feel like a bum overstaying my welcome, even though I know that isn’t true. But being on a couch just makes it feel like I don’t belong here.

It’s around the time that Adam is well enough to start chemo that he’s also well enough to start hounding me about taking classes.

School is the last thing on my mind, but we have a deal. I search online and find the local community college. I mention this to my mother, and she is thrilled. She even puts my father on the phone, and he reads off his credit card number so that I can sign up right then.

“You don’t have to pretend to be so excited,” I tell him. “It’s not Columbia.”

“Erica,” he says seriously, “an education is an education. It’s important, and you should remember that.”

I agree with him, mostly to get him to change the subject. But it still feels kind of silly to think about such mundane things when at the same time Adam is in so much pain. I do it though. It’ll make Adam happy.

* * *

The summer passes by, from July to August to September. I begin classes on the same day Adam begins his second round of chemo. Rachel takes off from work to be with him while I’m away, and at school I feel incredibly out of place. Everyone is bright-eyed, chattering and excited for the first day of school. I’m the same age as everyone else, but I feel so much older. I don’t feel like a kid anymore.

After my first day of classes—a required Literature course and a Calculus class—I take the bus back to the trailer, and spend the hour that Adam is able to stay awake telling him about school. This is what he wants to hear, and it seems to help him more than the pain meds to know that I’m going to be okay on my own.

We’re able to sleep in the same bed that night. I wake up well past midnight to find him shaking with pain, his body wrapped into a fetal position. His coughing is getting worse.

“Should I call Rachel?” I ask. “Do we need to go to the ER?”

“No,” he says bitterly. “This is
normal
. Try to get back to sleep.”

* * *

October is a bad month. Adam loses weight as if the pounds are evaporating off of him. This is a bad sign, and we are told if he can’t keep his weight stable they may have to stop treatment altogether. Adam takes the news without surprise.

I work distractedly on school assignments. Midterms approach and pass. Adam helps me study, holding up flashcards during the hours he spends each week undergoing chemo at the hospital.

I am amazed that all through this, Rachel doesn’t miss a shift at work. I know there’s a practical reason for it: she has told me privately that the health insurance at her work is surprisingly good. She can’t chance losing it. Plus she has to work extra to cover all the out-of-pocket expenses. But I also think there’s more to it.

One time I stopped by the diner after classes. I needed to use the car to run some errands, and had to pick up the keys from her. But before I went inside, I caught a glimpse of Rachel—that is, Waitress Rachel. Regular, everyday Rachel has been a sad, exhausted woman, preparing herself for the possibility that her only son will die. Waitress Rachel is completely different: she’s perky, she jokes with customers, she laughs. I recognize that being “on” is part of the job, but I also think she needs the break. To get through this, she needs to be around strangers who don’t feel sorry for her.

I guess my classes are like that for me. I’ve had a few study dates with a group of people from class, and I haven’t told them anything about myself. I don’t say where I’m from, where I’m staying, or talk about Adam. It’s not that I’m embarrassed. It’s more that sometimes it’s nice to
not
have to be that person.

It’s thinking about this that makes me wonder: what is Adam’s escape? For the last few months, he’s been cooped up in the house or at the hospital. I don’t think that’s good for him. He’s weak, but more than that he’s depressed. I can see it in his eyes.

He needs a project.

* * *

It takes two weeks to arrange. I have to let Rachel in on it. She’s worried at first that Adam might not be well enough for it, but eventually I convince her. With Levi’s guidance, we manage to piece together a collection of motorcycle parts and equipment. On Halloween we make the big reveal.

When Adam sees the bike he is to fix up, his eyes light up in a way that I haven’t seen for months. He talks about it nonstop over dinner that night, and the next day—under the promise that he won’t overextend himself—he begins to work again.

In November, Adam starts to get a little better. He switches to meds that reduce his nausea, and his weight stabilizes. He even has a plate of food at Thanksgiving.

Then December hits, and there isn’t a day we aren’t in the emergency room. He doesn’t lose weight from his new round of chemo, but it does have other side effects. I learn about these one day when I come home from class, scared when I see he isn’t in his bed.

I find him in the bathroom, an electric razor raised to his temple. He’s already buzzed off a third of the hair from his scalp.

“Adam?” I ask.

He jumps, then turns to me. He gives me his usual weary smile and shrugs his bony shoulders. “I hope you like guys with shaved heads. I’m losing it anyway.”

I put my hand to my mouth. I don’t know what to say.

He turns back to the mirror and raises the razor to his head again. He buzzes off a line of his messy brown hair, sending it into the sink. Then he laughs, watching himself.

“Well, now you know what you can get me for Christmas.” He buzzes all the way past the crown of his head, and then flicks the hair into the sink. “Hats. Lots and lots of hats.”